Mozilla has begun offering an Extended Support Release based on an official release of Firefox for organizations that are unable to mass-deploy new consumer-oriented versions of Firefox every six weeks. From the Mozilla ESR FAQ:

What does the Mozilla Firefox ESR life cycle look like?

Releases will be maintained for approximately one year, with point releases containing security updates coinciding with regular Firefox releases. The ESR will also have a two cycle (12 week) overlap between the time of a new release and the end-of-life of the previous release to permit testing and certification prior to deploying a new version.

Maintenance of each ESR, through point releases, is limited to high-risk/high-impact security vulnerabilities and in rare cases may also include off-schedule releases that address live security vulnerabilities. Backports of any functional enhancements and/or stability fixes are not in scope.

At the end of the support period for an ESR version:

the release will reach its end-of-life

no further updates will be offered for that version

an update to the next version will be offered through the application update service

E-Business Suite to be certified with Firefox Extended Support Releases

New personal versions of Firefox are released roughly every six weeks. It is impractical for us to certify these new personal versions of Firefox with the Oracle E-Business Suite because a given Firefox release is generally obsolete by the time we complete the certification.

From Firefox 10 and onwards, Oracle E-Business Suite is certified only with selected Firefox Extended Support Release versions. Oracle has no current plans to certify new Firefox personal releases with the E-Business Suite.

As of this announcement, Oracle E-Business Suite is certified with Firefox ESR 10, 17, 24, and 31.

EBS patching policy for Firefox compatibility issues

Mozilla stresses their goal of ensuring that Firefox personal versions will continue to offer the same level of application compatibility as Firefox Extended Support Releases.

Oracle E-Business Suite Development will issue new E-Business Suite patches or workarounds that can be reproduced with Firefox Extended Support Releases. If you report compatibility issues with Firefox personal releases that cannot be reproduced with Firefox Extended Support Releases, your options are:

Deploy a certified Firefox Extended Support Release version instead of the Firefox personal version

Report the incompatibility between Firefox ESR and Firefox personal to Mozilla

Mozilla may release new updates to Firefox ESR versions to address high-risk/high-impact security issues. These updates are considered to be certified with the E-Business Suite on the day that they're released. You do not need to wait for a certification from Oracle before deploying these new Firefox ESR security updates.

I'd be very interested in hearing about your plans for adopting Firefox Extended Support Releases in your environments. Please drop me a private email or post your comments here with your thoughts on this.